Sometimes the things we carry around, the things that that we think have so much power over us, sometimes they don’t have as much power as we thought do they?

We can also take away their power, not by avoiding them, not by talking them to death, not by asking others to never bring them up, not by creating a fucking safe space that takes away others’ rights to be individuals of their own accord, but by taking them head on, chewing them up bit by nasty bit and swallowing them down.

We get in our own way because the idea of something is worse than the actual thing. We are afraid of the fear, but the fear is just another tool at our disposal. It’s evolution’s little helper, a boost of adrenaline that kicks us in the ass and tells us that we can do the damn thing.

Not only that, but there is also the fact that some of us, some of us even found that the bad thing felt gooooood. Like actually good. Looking at you Mr. Pickles.

Now, how many things did we see all these wonderful jack asses struggle with yesterday and think to ourselves, “THAT?! That is what holds power over you? Why?!” It’s a beautiful lesson actually… Please, please always remember that the people you care about have things that they are going through that may seem normal to you but that are actually big, very real obstacles for them…

… is what Oprah might say.

This guy though? This guy says, that much, much more important than some feel good platitude mother earth bullshit, is to remember that your enemies and opponents may have very normal looking vulnerabilities and weaknesses that you can exploit right out in the open, things that your opponents will never be able to call you out on when you pick at it and weaponize them and, even fucking better, the other people around you guys won’t even realize that you are doing it! It’s a freebie! You can just keep fucking their eye socket, in public, with a congenial, saint-like smile…

That’s living!

Okay, we have all had our laughs you fuckle chucks but it’s time to get real.

What are you really carrying with you?

EVERYONE, every single one of you that participated, look into that camera again and let us know the thing that, for at least the past 10 years, you HATE about yourself… the thing you find disgusting, the thing you might even be afraid to say out loud to yourself.

Never in that warehouse? Or maybe it was all a dream? Practice saying it to yourself in front of a mirror. Say it over and over again until it ceases having power over you. Then just do it in front of your phone camera.

Well Noah, if it wasn’t for an actual good friend of mine pushing me to do this very 5 hing when she found out what the thing I hate is, I’d probably outright say no again. But seeing as this also came from someone I respect, I may just go through with it.

Downside is you happen to pick this task on one of those “double duty” days where I have a day job and a night gig. Not sure how late it’s gonna go but I’ll try to get this in before 11.

I don’t think I did this in the warehouse but I’ve done it plenty of times in various inappropriate places.

It’s utterly naive for me to think that there’s any way out of how I feel about myself at this point. I think at some point you’re allowed to stop and say “you know, I’ve been fighting this fight for 20+ years and have gotten nowhere, but at least I live a productive life and have some happiness so let’s move forward and stop trying to fix that shit.” There is no fixing this shit for me. I’ll do the periscope and it will make me and everyone else uncomfortable as fuck and my husband will watch and be like “yeah that’s 1/1000 of what she actually means to say” and then I will go back to work and try to not think about how much I hate myself for another 12 hours. That is literally all that will happen.

@coryphella Maybe the problem isn’t those things that you hate about yourself, but *THAT* you hate yourself in the first place. If you’ve been fighting it for 20+ years, and gotten nowhere, does that mean that it’s an unwinnable fight, or does it mean that your strategy hasn’t been working, and that it’s time to try a new one? You *CAN* find happiness, it’s not an impossibility. You’re never going to wake up, and think you’re perfect exactly the way you are. That’s ok. Life is a struggle against dying. Whatever problems you have in life, you’re not being eaten by lions, and you can shit in a porcelain bowl. Life is pretty good, even the shitty parts.

This…this makes me extremely uncomfortable. To say these things out loud, to acknowledge them. But, like @maddyxxx so colorfully pointed out, these are the things that have power over us, and naming them out loud can be the first step to taking away that power. I might cry, but I’m in.

@coryphella If you truly already believe it won’t help you in any way before you’ve already done it then don’t do it. We don’t waste time around here. If you kind of secretly hope maybe something might come out of it without really sort of giving it your all and taking a meta stance about who and what it means on six different levels of your own interaction as participant and academic but also endless double analysis of …. I can’t. I’m already tired.

Whip. No whip. That simple.

WHIP. You do it, own it, you live in it and make it your fucking bitch. The end.

OR

NO WHIP. Don’t do it, don’t talk about it, silently admit defeat then watch and listen to others, passively.

JUST PLEASE STOP THIS MIDDLE LANE HALF-IN, HALF-OUT BULLSHIT. STOP LIVING IN THIS SPACE WHERE YOU MANIFEST YOUR OWN MEDIOCRITY, HALF HOPE, HALF DEFEAT AT YOUR OWN PERIL.

OWN IT OR DON’T OWN IT.

It is not my responsibility to fix you or make you feel anything if you are unwilling to take control or release it.

Hope you enjoyed it @maddyxxx, I definitely didn’t. Maybe it does feel better on some level to admit it to people who aren’t myself though. And at the very least I won’t carry around the worry of doing that all day.

@maddyxxx – No, it’s not that simple, and that’s not how it fucking works.

I am not asking you to fix me at all. I never once said that.

You do it, own it, you live in it and make it your fucking bitch. The end.

I believe that’s what I just said I did. I am in no fucking way admitting defeat. Coming to a point in life where moving forward and living life becomes more important than fixing one’s self is NOT admitting defeat, it’s growing the fuck up. I don’t want to endlessly wallow in who the fuck am I questions or naval gazing what is my identity bullshit. I don’t care. I would *love* to relax. I would love to not hate myself for everything I’ve done for the past 40 years. It’s not going to happen. I can spend the time and money and effort trying to fix that, or I can move on and make art.

It’s so adorable that you think I’m passive.
It’s cute that you make fun of me for enjoying the meta, for being an academic, something that I worked my ass off for – something I don’t actually *have* to be, given that I’m also a professional, normally it’s one or the other, but I’m both. So fuck off.
And you can think I’m mediocre all you want. You’ve done little to impress me yourself. And while I’m busy hating myself I’m also getting shit done on a level you’d envy.

Is that what “no whip” means to you? Because releasing control is not being passive to me. Stepping out of the “half in half out” whatever you want to call it to the “no whip” side does not mean defeat and passivity to me. I am in control of my life to an extent that it exhausts me. I *dream* of releasing that control and *can’t*. Because if I do, shit falls apart.

Been talking about this particular thing I hate a lot lately – either in therapy, or with friends, or with my wife. Fear of failure –> self-sabotage –> increasingly devalued sense of self worth despite the good things in one’s life –> more fear of failure.

It’s a fucked up loop, but talking about it helps. So does recording it and sharing it. When you lay it out and put it down, it becomes a little less scary.

I’m sure I’ll get pissed at you again soon enough, but for now: thanks, @maddyxxx.

UPDATE: Since we’re all spilling, as I post this I’m realizing how much this also ties into a need to be liked / get approval. That’s not so great either. But writing it down here makes it a little more manageable.

@coryphella Let’s say you’re the world’s best plate spinner. You’re fucking great at it, nobody else even comes close. You’re out there on the stage, spinning all those plates, the audience is gasping in amazement. Great, you’re the best in the world at spinning plates. But, does keeping all those plates in the air make you happy? Are you so busy spinning plates that you don’t even have time to appreciate the audience’s enjoyment of your performance?

You think that if you let go of the reins, everything will fall apart around you. Why? The world was spinning before you got here, and it will keep on spinning long after you’re gone. It’s not your responsibility to make it spin, it’s going to do that all by itself. Your responsibility is to enjoy the ride.

I work in IT, my responsibility is to manage the infrastructure that the entire company is built on. All of it rides on my shoulders, it’s a huge responsibility. If it falls apart because I go on vacation, you could read that as me being indispensable, a resource so valuable the company can’t be without it for even a week. But, that’s not actually the truth. The truth is, if the joint collapses because I went on vacation, then I failed at my job. If I can never look away from those spinning plates for even a moment without it all coming crashing down, then I did something wrong. How will I ever make progress on anything else, when 100% of my attention is focused on plates? Life is more than keeping plates spinning.

When you let go of those reins, people are going to make mistakes. They’re going to do things in a way that’s not exactly how you would have done them. You will think this is a problem, but it’s not. A good parent doesn’t control every aspect of their child’s life in fear that the moment they stop, the kid will do something stupid. It’s a kid, it will do stupid things. Your job is not to make them survive, it’s to *teach* them how to survive. You’re not playing them like a video game, trying to reach the “good ending”. You’re trying to teach them how to play the game themselves.

Having control over your own life is a good thing, but needing to control every aspect of your life is just not achievable, or desirable.

@voxchaotica I say go ahead. I’m planning on doing one once I leave work and I haven’t aligned myself with the System at all, let alone do any of the challenges. Do it if you feel comfortable doing it and if you think it’ll help you emotionally in the long run.

Here’s what should be a mostly accurate transcription of Noah’s video:

“Why do hate myself? I don’t. I stopped feeling so long ago that I don’t remember. So now I have to push other people into feeling. I have to manipulate them. For the greater good of course. But I don’t feel love, I don’t know that I ever have. Either giving or receiving love. I couldn’t tell you what that is. And I know that I will never be the man other people would like me to be. I know that I at least pretend to enjoy the man that I am…because I’m fucking great at it. There have been many terrible things that I have either been indirectly or directly responsible for. I don’t even know if I feel human any more. But, doesn’t mean that I’m going to stop trying.”

I wanted to throw in…and I don’t know if it’ll make sense really
This is about all of us. The One, we know it has been. And our strength comes through mutual understanding of each other’s insecurities and filling in the gaps where one persons strength can bolster another’s weakness. If that’s the case, then despite our differences I think we’re all going to end up in the center of this storm and I intend to meet everyone in the middle rather than redrawing battle lines in a war that we have always been on the same side of.

This task reminds me of one of my favorite movie quotes, which I often draw inspiration from. It’s from Phoebe in Wonderland:

“At a certain point in your life, probably when too much of it has gone by, you will open your eyes and see yourself for who you are, especially for everything that made you so different from all the awful normals. And you will say to yourself, ‘But I am this person.’ And in that statement, that correction, there will be a kind of love.”

I’m not in a place where I can periscope today so a text post will have to do. I’ll preface this by saying I haven’t watched anyone’s responses yet, so this is me, 100%. Here goes…

I’m selfish. I hate that I have to remind myself to think about others sometimes, and that I’m not as attuned to what they feel and think as I could be. I hate that I’m not more generous to those in need, and as a Christian, that makes me a hypocrite. Sometimes I listen to others when they’re talking and only pretend to care. I’m insecure about my own accomplishments so that comes out as bragging or showing off to get validation from people around me.

I’m afraid of failure. In school, I was perfect. Top grades, model student, but of course the world doesn’t work like that. I miss out on opportunities because I don’t want to screw it up. I’ve never had a proper significant other, partially because I can’t in good faith enter into a relationship that I’m assuming will end with a breakup, and then all that wasted time and emotional baggage and then where would I be? I don’t want to be seen as “lesser” in the view of others when I do mess up, but that’s also because I’m projecting; I’m very hard on myself and hold myself to (one could say unreasonably) high standards, and am judgmental when they don’t live up to those standards.

Also to clarify, this was on Periscope. Hannah and Megan and a couple of others can vouch for that. My dumb ass just thought that selecting “broadcast to Tension group” meant it would invite everyone in that group rather than making it impossible to extract a link. So this is the rip from the broadcast

I commend those of you facing inward today. It just didn’t feel right to finish out the day without doing one as well.

The system aside, I can attest to real power that speaking publicly of your personal truths can have. However this is an unconventional venue for it.
It’s uncomfortable, but the more you uncomfortably talk about it the more you learn to be comfortable with its existence. Once that power is taken down you can get on with your life.

I worry so many of the things that have been mentioned today; how I look, what I say, how people must perceive me, whether I am living up to expectations, whether I am being understood. But I also worry about whether or not I’m broken.

One thing that I don’t like to tell people is that I used to have anger issues. I didn’t that version of me so I started to bottle up that emotion; not recommend because pressure builds and it eventually explodes. There were many fist shaped holes in the drywall. Trying to fix myself again I think fucked something up and somehow narrowed my emotional range. I don’t get extremely happy or sad. I didn’t cry at my mom’s funeral. I can’t even say that that I hate this about myself because that’s too strong of a word. I dislike my limited emotions.

I really appreciated this task. I very much enjoyed learning more about everyone. I’ll share more detailed responses shortly. Thank you for giving us this opportunity Noah, and more importantly thank you to The Powers That Be for everything you do.

Now that I’ve seen @mamatato’s video and bawled my eyes out with her, I think it’s time for me to get to bed. I’ll catch up with everyone else’s videos tomorrow. Too many tears shed today between this and the death of a friend.

I’ve been scrambling to catch up on everyone’s videos and won’t get to all of them. But I want to say that most have moved me to tears, and I feel just very grateful to know all of you. After years of bullshit Hollywood “friendships” it is refreshing and humbling to see the inside of REAL people, of REAL friends.

So for those of you that don’t know me, I was an original Tension participant. I haven’t been too active on the Lust forums, but I found this particular activity to be very inspiring and thought-provoking. I would like to get to know more of you, so I typed up some responses to the posts today. Please don’t take offense to any variations in length or topics I chose, I literally just wrote straight from the heart. If you don’t feel like responding or don’t want to get to know me, that’s totally okay. I just wanted to express my appreciation for everything that you guys shared. Also this is about to get very TLDR, so I’m sorry about that.

@sfire8 -I very much respect you for going first. That was a pretty damn brave thing to do, and I feel like your spirit in the video was very genuine.@kevin -For someone who hates sharing personal stuff about himself, you did a damn good job.@bryan -I very much appreciated your video. I felt like it was very honest and well thought out, very eloquent overall, and I look forward to getting to know you better throughout this process.
@thebuz -I didn’t know you jerked off while vacuuming. Cool combo dude 😛 Even with the serious nature, your videos definitely made me crack up, a much needed laugh today.@bruinbown -I really appreciate you sharing this, I hope when I see you at an event I’ll be brave enough to come up to you, even if you seem aloof lol. I’m super socially awkward but you seem like a really cool guy.@coryphella -If you feel like you’re “weird”, then I think you’re surrounded by the right group of people. Pretty sure we’re all weirdos here. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, if it makes us who we are.@theladyj -Although I obviously never knew your grandmother, I’m sure she valued other traits besides your career or your education. There are so many other amazing qualities that you have to offer as a person, and I’m certain she would still think the moon and stars of you for all of those things that make you who you are. Your paycheck and your current certificates are only temporary, but who you are fundamentally is much more valuable.@addisonborn -In your video, you referenced specific items and exactly what they meant to you. You were able to spot them without even searching. It is my understanding that hoarders don’t feel that in most cases, that generally they want to keep the stuff just to have stuff, or out of deep-seeded control issues. Though you may not be a minimalist, I don’t think you should feel any shame for the way that you are.@kasch -“At least we get to do this shit with our clothes on”-Fucking LOL! I related to a lot of what you had to say. I don’t know you well yet, but I think I’m starting to get why you and Buz are besties.@chelsea – YOU SHUT YOUR WHORE MOUTH ABOUT TOMATO JUICE. Just kidding. I love you. I saw your video and am extremely proud of you. You’re doing great. Can’t wait to see you this weekend <3@creepsociety -Your video actually really helped me with a lot of things I hate about myself (that I didn’t include in my video because I was trying to choose just one). I definitely get the feelings of being a people pleaser, caring more about the welfare of others than yourself. I’m really excited to see you in two weeks and talk more about this. I love you.@kipsie -I don’t know you, but for the record I would love to hang out with you. I am also socially awkward and totally introverted at times, but the people I’ve met through this have really helped me. I hope this process does the same for you.@ruck -I actually found your confession to be exceptionally fascinating. Although you use your drive in a self-destructive manner, I heard you describing something very similar to straight burning passion. If you listen to some of the most successful people in history, they described doing what they loved to the point of recklessness as well. If there’s a way to spin that drive into success, I know you can find it.@daela -The real you is beautiful, and I wish you’d let more people in. I have no other motive to spend time with you than what a wonderful person and friend you are. I just find you to have an incredibly good heart, unbelievable intelligence, and an abundance of kindness. You HAVE changed, you are more out of your shell now than the day we first began talking. Even if you can’t see it in your day to day life, I see it. Thank you for being the first person to visit me when I was in the hospital. Thank you for always offering me your home when I needed a place to stay. Thank you for helping me to understand how real friends are supposed to treat you.@maddyxxx -Are you trying to succeed or are you trying to feel human? Why are you so afraid of being bad at something? How do you define success?@shaun -I actually naturally avoid risk in a lot of situations, and I have found having people you love who are more adventurous really helps. Sean has helped me explore new foods and try different activities that I probably would’ve been too afraid to try independently. Going through Ascension also helped break me out of my comfort zone. Can’t wait to see what events Lust will provide for us this year. Hope to see you there.@wanda102 – I think to some extent caring about whether or not people like you is normal, but the wanting to be right thing could make you less approachable. If I were in that position, I think I’d try to consider which I valued more in a situation. I hate giving up my pride and admitting I was wrong, but I care more about the person I’m arguing with than winning the argument, you know?@nothenrygale -I hope immersive theater as a whole helps you feel less shame about the things that excite you.@chloe -I don’t think you’re boring at all. I found your response relatable and I’d actually like to get to know you better. I’m really glad you’re a part of this, and I hope we meet when I come up to LA.@pandace88 -I know we’ve never met, but I want you to know that I struggled making friends with most women for many years, and participating in Tension and Lust really helped me out with that. I know you said you don’t necessarily need to hear it because this is your own internal thing, but you are worth so much more than perhaps others have given you credit for.@superstar -I felt like what you said was really brave. There’s a certain warmth about you that I appreciate, and I hope we get to meet at an event soon.@sovereignskies -I don’t think it’s about the number of friends you have, but the quality of the company you keep. Most people I know have less friends now than they did when they were younger, and most of them seem happier dealing with less bullshit.@mumumusings -I feel like one day you will get to that point where you stop caring what people think (at least to a certain degree) and I swear it’ll be so effing liberating. I really appreciated learning a little more about you and I still can’t wait for you to come to LA one day!!!@remrelganaps -I think everyone on some level struggles with being themselves at a point in their lives. I feel like it dissipates with age and with the right company in a lot of cases, I hope that happens for you as well.@kortneydarling -I’m not sure what the basis of this discovery is, but I will say that I know a lot of women who didn’t experience that at all until their thirties, and most of them did so independently, not with a partner. If it’s not something you want, I totally get that, but if it is, I don’t think you should give up all hope just yet.@larry -What do you define as the ultimate win? What about the ultimate loss?@izryn -I think everyone feels like they have room for improvement. The fact that you recognize it is the first half of the battle.@genghistwan -I don’t think you should punish yourself for grieving. Grieving is a natural part of life, and I completely understand holding on to memories, regardless of how painful they are, because it’s all you have left. I hope you can find a way to stop being so hard on yourself.
@mamatato -I’m going to private message you, but I thought your video was amazing. Definitely the most courageous thing I’ve seen in a long while.@thegilded -I know you question your worth, but you do a phenomenal job at being my boyfriend. You make me happier than I ever knew I could be. I never thought I’d get to wake up every day thankful for who I was with, and then you happened. I hope I can be responsible for some of your rare excited feelings in our future too.@julierei -I really appreciated how expressive you were, it felt so human and real. Obviously you don’t only go for what’s safe and easy, because you’re doing Lust, which is certainly adventurous. I’m sure this will help bring you out of your box, and live in the moment.@shankfx22 -My response to this video goes so much deeper than this paragraph, which we will handle over PM. But for the record you are NOT fucking worthless, and if I ever hear you say that I will drive all the way to LA and spank you. Again. Don’t you make me come up there young lady. Seriously though, I love you. You are such a beautiful soul.@meghanmayhem -I love your personality. Regardless of how old you get, I will still find you hilarious, intelligent, and fun to talk to. And for the record, I actually think you’re even more beautiful without make-up. Seriously.@mistere -I have obviously never seen your feet, but for the record I never noticed anything different about the way you walked or stood. I think your value goes far beyond just the physical to be honest.@erisbonn -Okay, so this is a strange way of looking at it but it always helped me. “Fear is good. It means you have something to lose”. So I think being afraid of being yourself means that you really haven’t lost who you are, it’s still there. You just have to find it again so you can share it with the right people. I hope Lust helps somehow.@timsmyname -One, your dog is adorable. What was the art form that you gave up for a different career? I am curious.@cass -I found your video particularly endearing. I can relate to how you act towards others, I am the kind of person that apologizes when other people run into me. I also am a big note taker, I literally write notes before telling someone how I’m feeling or confronting them. I would love to meet you someday.@winstonsmith -I felt that your comments on other posts were quite insightful and I thought your video was refreshingly blunt.@wintermute -I found your confession about addiction to be interesting. Have you ever found a positive addiction? Something that’s “good” for you that you just enjoy too much? I ask because I’ve always wondered if it’s possible for me to replace one for the other, or if the addiction exists based on the fact that it’s considered to be “bad” by society. I’d enjoy some perspective on it. On a side note, you have a very cute cat.@lazysmartperson -I find you kind of awesome 🙂 I look forward to meeting you at a Lust event. I’d really like to be your friend, which I know sounds weirdly socially awkward and cheesy, but I am both of those things so fuck it. Thanks for sharing, even though the audio didn’t quite work.@shinobi -While I have always believed you are pretty stellar (and still do of course) I hope you don’t take offense when I say I’m not sure I understood your response. He didn’t ask you for regrets or things you’re sorry for, he asked you for something you hate about yourself. While hate is a strong word so I get the objections to it, the feeling of disliking something about yourself is pretty human. If we’re being honest here, I’d be really shocked if there wasn’t a single thing about you that you felt you could do better (again not because you’re not great, but because literally no one is perfect). I hope you don’t find this too rude, because I do find your commentary and company delightful, I just feel like you didn’t really answer the question. Still, I hope future exercises work out better for you.

And last but not least, I wanted to give a little shout out to @111error who wasn’t a part of this for obvious reasons. I just want you to know I love you very much. Thank you for always being there for me.

@tiffany223
“I don’t think you should punish yourself for grieving. Grieving is a natural part of life, and I completely understand holding on to memories, regardless of how painful they are, because it’s all you have left. I hope you can find a way to stop being so hard on yourself.”

Thank you for your kind words. I feel like your comment to me can applied to your own situation too. Let yourself grieve and cry. It’s funny how we are so very compassionate to others and so very hard on ourselves. I would never chastise someone for grieving and being emotional, but it’s something I’ve done repeatedly to myself over the past few weeks.

Seriously @tiffany223, thank you for responding to everyone. And yes, immersive theater absolutely has been helping me learn to enjoy certain things and subject matter that I enjoy without shame. Noah still rubs me the wrong way, but I am learning from him.

@tiffany223 You make my heart grow for you every time we speak. And this… THIS was so giving and thougtful of you for everyone. We always have the best talks in PM anyways 😊 Loving you and letting you know that I feel very honored and special to have met you, and I value and cherish our talks ❤️❤️

@tiffany223 and yes, thank you, Tiffany! That was so sweet of you 💕 I would love to meet you in person as well. And I didn’t include it but yes I do apologize when people bump into me (or did, before the System changed me), so you were right on the money.